one of the most surprising things to me was there was a defense intelligence agency report, a classified report that came out in 2002 that specifically said our intelligence on weapons of mass destruction is terrible. we can't establish any of the things that we're saying to the public. and i quote from that document pretty extensively. and so that, that was, um,ty tushing on the level -- disturbing on the level of it really did seem like b if something, the preconception, it was accepted. if something didn't, it was tossed aside. and clearly the people who were doing the good work were the ones who were saying there was nothing there. >> host: how do you research a book like this? >> guest: um, you willingly subject yourself to a great amount of agony. the reporting on this started in 2006, and, you know, here we are 2012. when i started, i really thought i was doing a book about the eight years of the bush administration. and after many hundreds of hours of interviews, i realized that, um, i could write, you know, ten volumes on that and really the heart of the story was in this that 5